


Bullet for a Heart

by Gadhar



Category: The Expendables (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 20:12:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3221900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gadhar/pseuds/Gadhar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"I am not shitting fucking rainbows and unicorns, Barney."</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bullet for a Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wanderingsmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingsmith/gifts).



> I do not own anything.
> 
> Written because, well, yeah. Words. Written because words.

The mind was a vicious fucking thing. Twisting words and sounds and feelings. Replaying traumatic events. 

It didn't matter how much he wanted to stop. It just kept happening. 

The heart monitor sounded like gunfire, and yet remained the eerie countdown to possible death that it was. But for each shot that rang in his ears, Barney felt another twist of guilt, a stab of pain. 

This was his fault. It wasn't like he didn't know. Hell, he could feel it; a slick sludge, black as pitch, suffocating him. His mistake was...unforgivable. A betrayal within itself. 

But that didn't mean he needed to see Caesar shot repeatedly in his mind. He didn't need to hear the shot that went in near Caesar's heart on an endless loop. He didn't fucking _need_ to see Stonebanks' fucking face. 

He didn't need it awake and he didn't need it asleep. Didn't need it replayed for him, over and over, in fucking 3D technicolor. 

He knew what he did. 

Why couldn't he get a break from the guilt? 

It wasn't as though he wanted to be rid of it, he didn't want to forget it. He just...five seconds without having nightmares playing on his eyelids. That's all he wanted. 

Or, at the very least, he'd take this guilt—this special brand of fucking his friends, his _family_ , over, of nearly breaking them—lessening so that it was no more intense, no more important, than all the other guilt he had over every other mistake. 

He had no right to want it, but he wished it all the same. 

"This is what you do?" 

Barney carefully didn't move. The quiet voice from the doorway was flat, tired, and just a bit...accusing. "Do?" 

There was a shift—Lee shifting, moving, walking. Barney could feel it in the air, the cloying darkness around the Brit, the _anger_ —and Lee was beside him, hand drawing him up. 

Barney followed Lee out and down the hallway. Even so far away, even under the rumble of meaningless hospital workings, he could still hear that monitor. Still count the seconds in his head, waiting for it to go flat. 

Lee was looking at him, _staring._ Steely eyes and iron jaw. The tense line of his shoulders was a hard parallel to the lines of tiling on the wall behind him. 

He was poised, muscles coiled, ready for a fight. There was so much in his posture that screamed how much he wanted to tear something apart, to beat it bloody. 

Some small part of Barney felt the same, shared in that bloodlust. But the larger part of him was tired, so tired. So fucking guilt-ridden to the point he was nearly numb. He regretted following Lee out here, even if the hand on his shoulder had been insistent to the point of not taking 'no' for an answer. 

Barney told himself he willingly left because he knew this wasn't a conversation for Caesar's room and not because he desperately wanted Lee to say something. Something smooth and right, like he always did. Something that would make Barney feel better. 

" _This_ is what you're doing?" 

Barney blinked slowly, trying to figure out what Lee was even asking about. If he was even asking. Something told Barney there was no question in his voice. "I don't-" 

"Bullshit! What the hell are you doing? He's out there! Stonebanks is fucking _out there_ and you're- I don't even know what the fuck you're doing!" 

Barney's jaw clenched and he inhaled sharply through his nose. "What do you want, Lee?" 

"What do I want? What the fuck does that matter? Caesar's lying there on his fucking back fighting for his life!" 

"You think I don't know that? I was there! I heard the rifle's report. I saw it hit Caesar. I saw him go down. I _felt_ him go down!" 

"Then why the hell are you just sitting here?" Lee's voice dropped into that same flat tone again. No inflection. Just anger and accusation. Burning and dark. No more yelling. 

It made Barney shudder. He preferred the yelling. It was clearer, deserved. "What would rather have me do?" 

"How about go out and find him? When Billy went down you were _pissed._ You were _enraged._ I saw your eyes Barney, I saw that you weren't going to let anything short of fucking _death_ stop you. And now, now Caesar is nearly put in the ground and you just- just- give up!?" 

"Well sorry to disappoint! I guess I'm not as much of a homicidal maniac as you thought." He cringed even as he said it. Saw the way it made Lee's mouth snap shut. The way it made Lee's eyes even fucking _soften._

He didn't deserve that. 

Barney turned to the face the wall, leaning against it. 

"You want me to make you feel better about it, or something?" 

Barney shrugged. Would it be wrong to admit it? "Maybe...I don't know. Maybe I just..." He shrugged again, pulling his head away before letting it smack against the wall again. 

"I'm not going to. I'm not going to say everything's okay. I'm not gonna say you didn't fuck up, that it wasn't your fault. You lost it Barney, you _fired._ Without a single word to the rest of us. I will not make you feel better. You should feel like this. You should feel like the lowest of the low. Trash. Scum. I want you to feel it." 

Lee couldn't make it hurt anymore if he stuck a literal knife through Barney's chest. From himself, he could take this, take the blame, the hate. From the others he could take it. From Lee...everything seemed to multiply with his words. It made Barney's shoulders bunch, fists clenching. 

"Do you get it?" 

"OF COURSE I FUCKING GET IT!" Barney whirled around letting the words go, yelled them with all the anger and weight he could. Did Lee think he was stupid too? "I get it. I messed up. You're happy I know that. You're happy I feel like shit. I'm glad I could accommodate you. _Fuck off._ " 

Lee snorted, stepping closer, into Barney's space. He tilted his head, staring hard at Barney until Barney's head lifted, their eyes meeting. "You're a fucking pathetic sod, you know that? I'm not happy about it. Caesar's only a step away from a metal slab and you're a fucking mess. I'm not happy. I am not shitting fucking _rainbows and unicorns, Barney._ " 

Barney didn't reply, had a feeling he wasn't supposed to and Lee continued on. 

"I want you to feel this because I don't want this to happen again. I don't want you losing your cool and ending up in a coffin, even more than I don't want anyone else ending up in one. i don't want you to make the same mistake. Ever. Again. You made a mistake, Barney. A huge, fucked-up one, but it was still a _mistake._ You're human. Are you following me?" 

Barney shook his head. He didn't have the mind set to read through Lee's bullcrap. To follow the line of logic that no doubt made huge jumps from one point to the next. 

Lee sighed, a smile twitching the corner of his lips a moment before he went back to that neutral scowl. "You need to feel like this, I need you to feel like this because sometimes...Barney we've seen the worst the world has to offer. We've seen it, felt it, been in the middle of it, _multiple times._ Hell, we've probably done our fair share of it. But I need to know you're still with me. I need to know that the guy I'm laying next to is alive and human. Not some unfeeling, shattered bastard. I _will not_ be with a monster, Barney. And I won't let you become one either. 

"I want you to take this—this anger, this pain, this guilt—I want you to take it and load it with every single clip you put in a gun. I want it behind every punch. I want in the fucking _air you breathe_ when we get Stonebanks. And I want it in your mind, just the barest remembrance of what it feels like, the next time some fucker makes you lose it. Because Caesar deserves better than whatever fucking guilt trip you're on. Because _you_ are better than this." 

Lee leaned forward, and Barney let the hands on his face drag him in and lean their foreheads together. He look into Lee's eyes and let that steely fire sink in. Let the pain hidden behind them burn itself in his memory. At the very least, all else fails, he'll have this, this look in Lee's eyes - _that hurt_ \- to keep him from doing something stupid the next time. 

" _I'm sorry,_ " He said. 

And Lee said, " _I know._ " 


End file.
